If you want to hear Cuban music played by Cuban musicians in the United
States, head for Vegas. The only musicians from Cuba granted entry here
during the past year perform at the Stardust Resort and Casino's Wayne
Newton Theater through April. Their Havana Night Club: The Show arrived
at the invitation of illusionists Siegfried and Roy. How fitting.

It wasn't magic that produced these artists, just tricky legal and
political maneuvering among anti-Castro militants. And it should come
as no surprise that all of the 51 original cast members sought
political asylum shortly after arriving here.

Such intrigue is a smoke screen designed to obscure a troubling
underlying reality: The Bush administration has severed the fertile
connection between Cuban and American musicians — and audiences — by
reversing American policy.

In 2004 alone, the list of Cuban musicians forced to cancel
performances due to visa denials includes Buena Vista Social Club
singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, jazz pianist Jesus "Chucho"
Valdés, singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, the seminal dance band Los Van
Van, and the folkloric ensemble Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.

The security crunch following 9/11 has given immigration authorities
the excuse they've long sought to exclude many foreign musicians from
the United States. But against Cubans, the resistance runs far deeper.
This is a Cuban music crisis — a development that has more to do with
the Cold War than the War on Terror.

"Havana Night is an anomalous case," said Qbadisc label founder Ned
Sublette, whose Cuba and Its Music is the most thorough and
colorful argument for just how elemental Cuban music has been to
American culture. "This embargo on Cuba," he told me, "is an embargo on
us as well. It cuts us off from one of the most important musical
cultures in the world, one that's vital to our own identity."

The Cuban embargo has been in effect since 1961. Barriers were lowered
somewhat during the Carter administration, but the situation reversed
as the Cold War played out. In 1985, President Reagan issued
Proclamation 5377, under section 212F of the Immigration and
Nationality Act, denying entry to "any class of aliens into the United
States [that] would be detrimental to the interests of the United
States," specifically those "considered to be officers or employees of
the government of Cuba or the Communist Party of Cuba." This blocked
virtually all Cubans, since 90 percent of the country's economy is
state-run.

Relations with Cuba loosened throughout Clinton's second term — Los
Van Van, Cubanismo, and many other Cuban bands made their U.S. debuts.
In 1999 the U.S. began exempting broad categories of Cuban applicants
from Proclamation 5377, especially artists, in an effort to encourage
"people-to-people exchange." As State Department spokesman Lou Fintor
explains, "At that time, the American government undertook what it
termed a two-track approach to its Cuba policy: tightening some aspects
of the embargo but also exposing its citizens to American freedom and
democracy."

With relaxed restrictions, Cuban music flowered anew in the United
States. Ry Cooder's wildly successful Buena Vista Social Club
would be impossible today; so too, Mambo Sinuendo, his
Grammy-winning collaboration with Cuban guitarist Manuel Galbán. Cooder
accepted his latest Grammy alone at the podium this year, as Galbán was
among some 45 Cuban musicians, including all five nominees for Best
Tropical Latin Album, denied entry for the ceremony. Rejection letters
from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (the closest thing we have to
an embassy there) cited a return to the Reagan proclamation "because
the Castro administration has taken advantage of the exemption to
enrich the government."

"This was an affirmative act," said Bill Martinez, a San
Francisco-based attorney who has worked with Cooder and many Cuban
musicians. "It was clearly meant to send a message. It was an
out-and-out denial, stemming not from the Treasury Department but from
other agencies and individuals in the executive branch. The Bush
administration is using artists' visas as an offensive tool to
implement foreign policy."

One protest came in a March New York Times op-ed piece by
singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, in response to Varela's visa denial.
"In a profound way," wrote Browne, who toured with Varela in Europe,
"our government takes on the role of oppressor when it tries to control
which artists will be allowed access to our minds and hearts."

Joe Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban American National
Foundation, lobbied on behalf of the Havana Night Club troupe. "The
group demonstrated that they were financially and politically
independent of the Castro regime," he said from his office in Miami.
"That is why we supported them, and why they ended up here. While I am
a fan of Jackson Browne, he misses the point when he supports artists
who don't denounce Castro."

Saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, who left Cuba for the
United States in 1980, sounded a similar tune when I spoke with him
just before he accepted a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters
Fellowship. "It is my dream to play with Chucho Valdés again, and with
the other Cuban musicians," he said. "But when South Africa was
embargoed by musicians, nobody complained. Why is Cuba different?"

The anti-Castro hard line leaves no room for negotiation. As Sublette
put it, "The polarization of attitudes between Havana and Miami,
between those who live under Castro and those who oppose Castro, makes
it hard to even have a conversation. It's created a civil-war
mentality."

Caught in the crossfire are countless musical connections. I should be
reporting on December's Havana International Jazz Festival, a biannual
event that typically draws a who's who of American jazz musicians. At
past editions, I've heard Herbie Hancock jamming with Chucho Valdés.
I've watched Arturo O'Farrill, music director of the Lincoln Center
Afro-Latin Orchestra, make first contact with the homeland of his
father, the late bandleader Chico O'Farrill.

Chico O'Farrill left Cuba shortly after Castro took power, never to
return.

"My father was betrayed by the Castro regime," Arturo told me. "And I
am not a Castro supporter. But to play with a Cuban musician does not
mean you are supporting the regime. Playing music should transcend
politics. And right now I feel betrayed by the Bush administration and
the stance it is taking toward Cuba."

Like most Americans this year, I skipped the festival. O'Farrill's
manager advised him that, even if he got a visa, he would risk a hefty
U.S. fine. "It was devastating to say no to the festival," said
O'Farrill, who has dreams of bringing Lincoln Center musicians to
Santiago, Cuba. "It seemed so positive and so possible even two years
ago. It just seems like a faraway dream now. If you want to have a
cultural exchange with Cuba, you're going to have to wait four years."

O'Farrill is right. There seems no chance that the Bush administration
will alter its stance regarding cultural exchange with Cuba.

Saxophonist Steve Coleman is one of many American jazz players who have
derived deep inspiration and seminal information from Cuban
collaborations. The Bush policies frustrate him. "I remember an
audiotape of John Coltrane talking to several people in a room, in the
early 1960s," Coleman told me. "At one point they began talking about
cigars. Coltrane mentioned that the best cigars were from Cuba. Then in
a kind of regretful tone, he said something like, 'Well, that's all
finished now,' in reference to the recently instituted embargo. This
was the initial curtailing of experiments like those of Dizzy Gillespie
in the '40s and '50s. Who knows what could have happened if the
musicians of the '60s had had full access to this music?"

As a musician, a fan, a patriot, and someone who has been to Cuba and knows something of the people and the music, I have mixed feelings about this situation.

Two comments in the article caught my attention:

1) >>>>As State Department spokesman Lou Fintor explains, "At that time, the American government undertook what it termed a two-track approach to its Cuba policy: tightening some aspects of the embargo but also exposing its citizens to American freedom and democracy."<<<<

2) >>>>Rejection letters from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (the closest thing we have to an embassy there) cited a return to the Reagan proclamation "because the Castro administration has taken advantage of the exemption to enrich the government."<<<<

I support the president and his current administration, and I do understand that the Post-911 world is very different from the one before... But it seems as though a policy more akin to #1 above would be fruitful in terms of showcasing a "better way" if you will, by exposing Cubans to American culture and freedoms.

However, I do understand the ideas expressed in the second quote as well-- Castro's "economy" (if it can be called that), and his government, are propped-up (much to our chagrin) on U.S. Dollars. The official exchange rate (according to Cuban policy) for dollars to pesos is one-to-one-- in other words, until recently, in Cuban terms, a Cuban peso was "equal" in value to the U.S. dollar; which is interesting, because when you go down there, _nobody_ in la patria will accept their own money; they want everything in U.S. dollars (or, simply put, Cuban money is worthless to Cubans). Castro was finally and ultimately offended by this obvious truth, and recently "outlawed" American money in Cuba (which is pretty funny, really).

Meanwhile, when government-sponsored artists or tours travel to the U.S. or elsewhere, whatever earnings they make go directly to the Castro regime, while the average Cuban citizen in Castro's Communist paradise is living on (the equivalent of) barely 7 to 15 dollars a month. Everyone works for the government, but no one can afford it, so everyone is on the hustle.

Tough to say what the answer is, but Paquito's comments ring true-- nobody complained about South Africa, but for some reason the Cuban embargo ruffles more feathers here in the U.S.